In the Recesses of the Mind
by Hanyou Hugger
Summary: After an attack from one of Naraku's detachements, a strange bite inflicted upon Inuyasha begins to cause the group to fall apart. Can the bonds between them stay strong enough to survive Naraku's evil scheme?


A/N: I really shouldn't be starting a new story, should I? The other 2 that I promised to get back to kinda... got boring so to speak. That might be why this one is and R =P But then this idea popped in my head! It's a much more serious and angst filled fic but it's bound to turn happy in the end if I get around to finishing it. It's also an idea that's probably been overused, but I decided to take my own spin on it anyway. Enjoy! ^_^  
  
Disclaimer: Inuyasha doesn't belong to me. But the evil youkai guy below does... Not that I really want Mr. Nameless villain to anyway =P  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
In the Recesses of the Mind  
  
Chapter 1: A Dark Dawn  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Inuyasha!!!"  
  
Kagome's scream once again pierced through the thick air of the forest, startling a roost of birds from their perch in the nearby trees. The treetops shook as the creatures hurriedly took flight and caused the entire wooded area to be filled with the sound of flapping wings, dark feathers floating to the ground as their owners fled towards the clouds. The girl didn't notice the marred sky or the shower of leaves and feathers, instead watching her companion once again connect with the hard soil with a resounding crack.  
  
Inuyasha cast a quick glance at the young woman, who had stopped screaming and had her hands cupped around her mouth with tears brimming in her eyes. He rolled to his right as a clawed hand embedded in the soil next to where he had previously been. He suppressed a whimper when his weight fell onto his right arm, the appendage obviously broken and sending sharp jabs of pain through his entire body. The hanyou sprang to his feet as his assailant again scraped at the ground and managed to run a gash along his opposite arm. Inuyasha heard a muffled cry from the edge of the tree line as his own blood splattered against the dirt at his feet.  
  
"Isn't there anything we can do to help him, houshi-sama...?"  
  
Miroku turned to Sango, who was nervously grasping the strap of her gigantic boomerang Hiraikotsu, and shook his head. The demon exterminator turned her head towards Kagome and bit her lip, the schoolgirl wincing at every blow the hanyou took and looking as if she were forcing herself to not run into the middle of the battlegrounds.  
  
The battle itself was between their friend Inuyasha and a youkai that stank of Naraku, being either offspring of the demon or some evolved form of detachment. The youkai had its fanged mouth always quirked into a sinister grin and dark matted hair falling across its sallow face and dangling in front of the slits that served as its nostrils. The hoodless black eyes gleamed venomously as the demon licked the crimson liquid from its slim and piercing claws.  
  
"There's nothing, Sango. If we tried to act we would chance hitting Inuyasha. And I don't think even he can handle any of our blows in his current condition."  
  
The youkai took another swipe at the hanyou, the blow barely avoided by raising the Tetsusaiga. The sharp claws screeched as they met the enchanted blade, the painful noise even more accentuated in the otherwise quiet woods.  
  
"But don't you find it strange, houshi-sama?" Sango kept her gaze on the battle before her while she directed her voice at the monk at her side.  
  
"How the youkai is fighting, you mean?" Miroku glanced to the woman beside him before again watching the two fighters. "Yes. Normally Naraku's detachments attack without restraint or are used as a distraction or as part of some scheme. No matter how strong it seems, this one appears as if it is merely playing with Inuyasha and not using its entire strength."  
  
"Then you must also have noticed how it only seems to be attacking his arms."  
  
Indeed, the half demon's arms dripped blood to the forest floor at an alarming rate, many deep gashes on his arms where the cloth of his red hakama had been ripped to shreds. Inuyasha desperately tried to parry his opponent's blows with the Tetsusaiga clutched in his left hand, his grip slippery from the bleeding wounds. His right arm hung limply at his side and jerked painfully with each blow.  
  
"Why-why do you think it's doing that?"  
  
Kagome finally tore her gaze away from the grisly sight in front of her and reassuringly patted Shippou's head from his place on her shoulder. Both Miroku and Sango noted her tightly clenched jaw and tear marks staining her cheeks.  
  
Miroku studied the schoolgirl for a moment before studying the battle again. "It almost seems as if the youkai is focusing on Tetsusaiga. Notice how it appears to be centering all of its attacks on his left hand." He gestured towards the sword with his right, the sound of the rosaries clacking together barely distinguishable from the sounds of the fight before them.  
  
"But," Kagome looked towards Inuyasha once more and winced as she noticed the blood pooling on the dirt floor. "But that thing can't take Tetsusaiga because it's a demon, right? And if the fight goes after Inuyasha loses the sword then--" She choked back a sob as a particularly nasty gash cut across his cheek.  
  
"--then he would most likely revert back to his full youkai form. But, houshi-sama, wouldn't that be a disadvantage for that detachment? It wouldn't stand a chance against Inuyasha like that." Sango finished the thought for Kagome and fisted her hand around Hiraikotsu's strap.  
  
"Maybe it has some other objective in mind for the sword. It could be-- DUCK!"  
  
Miroku pushed the two girls beside him to the ground and pressed their heads into the soil. He slowly released them and stood back up to observe the sword that had embedded itself in the tree trunk behind him. Sango angrily stood up and glared at the monk before pulling the untransformed Tetsusaiga from the wood, a task made difficult from the amount of blood soaked into the handle.  
  
Kagome dusted herself and Shippou off while glancing towards the fight again. Inuyasha had finally lost the sword and a steady stream of blood was flowing from his left palm and dripping down his fingers. The two opponents had come to a standstill and the youkai was grinning wickedly while blocking the sword from its owner. Inuyasha spat to his side and returned the grin, slightly lopsided from the scratch across his cheek.  
  
"Keh. Was that what you were after? You're that fucking happy about me letting go of my sword? I've got more up my sleeves that that, idiot!"  
  
Inuyasha charged forward with his claws raised and the youkai still didn't move from his spot. Something wasn't right.  
  
Kagome's eyes widened as she saw the youkai's grin grow larger, to the point where his mouth was open and waiting, the sharp teeth dripping with some type of thick liquid. She screamed but still couldn't stop her friend's advance.  
  
"INUYASHA!!!"  
  
The hanyou managed to tear off one of the youkai's pointed ears before the scream pierced his senses. But it was still too late. His assailant grabbed his hand and dug his sharp nails into his wrist before biting down. Inuyasha kicked him away and tore his hand away from the youkai's grasp before falling to his knees.  
  
The youkai snarled and cradled what was left of his ear before running into the dense woods. The rest of the group hesitantly watched it go for a moment before returning their attention to their fallen friend, Kagome having already run to his side with a first aid kit in hand. Miroku and Sango looked once more to the trees and then to Kagome and Inuyasha, deciding that they wouldn't have been able to catch that demon anyway.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"...And so then we dragged you onto Kirara and rushed to the village as quickly as possible and you've been asleep ever since."  
  
Kagome was binding Inuyasha's wounds again in Kaede's hut. She pulled out another roll of bandages from her first aid kit and moved onto his left arm.  
  
"So I passed out after just getting bitten from that damn weak youkai? For two whole days? I'm ashamed of myself."  
  
Kagome unwound a bandage across his palm and gave him a leveled stare. "'Weak youkai'? And you passed out because we think the bite it gave you had some poison in it." She wrinkled her nose at the amount of blood caked on his hand and beneath his fingernails. "And I don't think the blood loss helped much either."  
  
"Poison?" Inuyasha looked at the bite marks on the back of his left hand as Kagome rubbed some more of that smelly ointment onto it. "But I feel fine now."  
  
"Yeah. 'Fine'. I don't think having a wound that's turning black around the edges is 'fine'." She added another liberal dose of the ointment to the teeth marks before wrapping the wound with another bandage. "Besides, Kaede- bachan gave you as many herbs as she could think of that worked against poison. But she's not sure that they'll work since the poison came from a youkai. A detachment of Naraku no less."  
  
"Stupid bastard. He's gonna get what's coming to him someday soon."  
  
"Rant as much as you want, but right now you need some rest. Naraku can wait and devise as many little evil plans as he wants until you get better."  
  
Kagome started to rise but was stopped as Inuyasha grabbed her hand.  
  
"You didn't get hurt did you? I don't remember much of anything about the battle and I--"  
  
She smiled and patted his hand before getting up. "Don't worry. None of us got hurt but you, unfortunately. Except that Miroku gave me and Sango bumps on our heads when he pushed us down to avoid Tetsusaiga." She grabbed the bucket near her feet and dropped the blood soaked towel she had been cleaning his wounds with into it. "Now I'm going to go get some more water and clean this towel out before I bind up the rest of you arm. You really need to stop bleeding so much, you know."  
  
She gave a small wink before pushing past the hanging screen door and stepping outside. The brief flash of sunlight stung Inuyasha's eyes and he waited patiently for Kagome to return. For a whole two seconds. Then he unwound the bandage across his hand that the girl had so diligently and carefully attended to, crinkling his nose as the scent of the ointment wafted upwards. He tried to ignore it and instead focused on the tinted marks across the back of his hand. The edges of the wounds were turning a disconcerting shade of gray and the marks emitted a disgusting scent that managed to faintly permeate through the scent of the ointment.  
  
His head all of a sudden began to hurt. Dark spots were dancing in front of his eyes and the sounds of the birds chirping outside were drowned out by a deafening and heavy silence. He desperately wanted Kagome to come back inside and just take all of the pain and darkness away. The silence was broken by a coarse whisper, harsh and grating to his ears.  
  
'come...out....'  
  
Come out? His mind tried to make sense of the voice, but it returned again and made his headache intensify.  
  
'come out...Inuyasha...'  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
At least it seemed that Inuyasha was getting better. In a few days he would be his normal, strong self and they'd continue searching for the remaining Shikon shards of Naraku himself.  
  
"But that bite does worry me." Kagome rinsed the towel in the stream and shook her head to clear her thoughts. "But worrying about it won't solve anything. It's probably just a little bit infected, that's all." She took the now full bucket and began to walk back to Kaede's hut.  
  
That was all it was, right?  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Kagome pushed the screen aside and stepped into the hut. She took a few cautious steps forward and adjusted the wooden bucket in her arms while she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light in the room. She had spent most of the past couple of days in here and didn't realize how dark it was compared to outside. Another few steps and she felt her foot brush against her backpack and realized he must be close. But why hadn't Inuyasha said anything yet? Was he asleep?  
  
She whispered in case he was sleeping. The hut also seemed strangely quiet and even whispering felt too loud. "Inuyasha? Are you awake?"  
  
Kagome listened more closely in case he responded and took another few hesitant steps forward. She heard some heavy breathing from a few feet in front of her and took an unconscious step back. Something was wrong about the short ragged breaths filling the room.  
  
"Inuyasha?"  
  
She opened her mouth for a silent scream and watched the bucket of water fly from her hands in slow motion. A searing pain ripped across her right shoulder and across her torso. Her head it the hard wooden floor and she tried to blink away the tears to focus on the figure above her, his hand broken through the wooden boards to the side of her head. The girl fuzzily made out the face above hers through her tears and faintly heard the sound of the now empty bucket roll across the hard floor.  
  
"Inuyasha?"  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
A/N: Aaaah! I'm sorry! This is my first take at an R fic, and it wasn't even meant to be at first! _;;; I just wanted to be safe because of all the blood and angsty and dark aspects to the story (not R for any 'indecent' things that are to happen o_o). But I don't even know if I'll get around to finishing it because I have a tendency to get lazy and run out of ideas. But I do have some scenes kinda planned out. Besides that, no clue! Review if you have any suggestions or are just in the mood to comment on things ^_^;;; Until next chapter! 


End file.
